DBZ Glass Project

When the concept of Google Glass was announced, like many fans of the Dragonball Z anime, I immediately noticed the resemblance of the Glass to the DBZ Scouter. In the anime, the Scouter is a high-tech eyepiece that detects and analyzes its surroundings. As a lifelong Dragonball fan, I thought to myself, it’d be cool to film a DBZ scene from the Scouter’s perspective with the Glass. And if I could get my hands on a Glass, this is the first thing I would do. Dream became reality when I had the opportunity to pre-order the Glass at Google IO 2012.

As a tech enthusiast and indie filmmaker, I really wanted to test out the Glass’s video recording and filmmaking capabilities. I’m well aware of other action cameras with higher resolution and better picture quality (the Glass records at a mediocre 720p at 30fps), but the form factor and augmented reality capabilities place the Glass in a category of its own. The Glass is lightweight, and worn at eye level. Therefore, when recording a video, the Glass picks up the wearer’s head movement and captures their point of view. Our video is a prelude to future sci-fi filmmaking with more powerful wearable “smart” device, along with Youtube hits such as this.

Although the Glass currently doesn’t yet have any augmented reality features built in to its video recording software, I want our video to explore what’s possible. Measuring a person’s power level may be a stretch, but facial recognition, object detection and tracking, and real time pulse reading are examples of capabilities within reach. But one of the most exciting future feature has to be a hybrid of gaming and film. Imagine the possibility of playing as Vegeta and kicking Goku’s ass at the end of our video (or the other way around), and recording that entire sequence.

Stay tuned for the Behind the Scenes/Making Of write up and video post!

Production Stills:

Getting the costume glove ready

Capturing the location POV

Firing up the Screencast feature to monitor recordings from the phone

Green screen setup with huge fans by Goku. We recorded the green screen footage vertically to dedicate more resolution to the characters.

I would also like to thank my team. We couldn’t have made this project happen without these awesome and dedicated individuals. We were lucky enough to have Ian Roberts bring Nappa to life. We wasted no time to get Ian to join our project because we thought if he’s bad ass enough to kick superman’s ass, he can definitely talk some trash to Goku.

I wanted our video to look and feel authentic. And I was less than happy with the costumes available on eBay. This is when I recruited my creative and talented MBA classmate Vanja Deretic to take charge of the costume design. We made all of the costumes from scratch. And yes, I did request a slim-fit goku suit. Vanja also helmed the hair and makeup efforts. Hours and hours went into getting that Goku hair to look right.

Getting the video to look right was only half of the equation. Isaac Olsen’s sound design and mixing glued all of the visuals together into a wholesome experience. I basically asked Isaac to forget everything he had heard from the notorious anime clip, and come up with what he thinks everything should sound like in real life. I gotta say, I couldn’t be more happy with with the final mix.

Big thanks to Ryan Sangalang for accompanying us to the scorching Vasquez Rocks when it was 109 degrees and documenting our shoot. His stills were instrumental to recreating the landscape and background in post.

Last but not least, I want to give a shout out to my homie Sean Kao for doing a splendid job on voicing Vegeta.

***Disclaimer***

We have no affiliation, sponsorship, nor any partnerships with Google or the Dragonball franchise and its rights holders. Our video is simply a fan video, made by fans for the fans.